Good news and good riddance

We ran two stories on the retreat of the high-tech companies in yesterday's Business Post. One, on the front page, described a 'tumble across globe' as investors sold tech stocks on reports that Intel's earnings were falling further.

The other consisted of two paragraphs on Page 3. It was headlined 'Official inaction buries Silicon Harbour', and quoted a report that a consortium of American and Taiwan investors would build a US$1 billion to US$2 billion microchip manufacturing centre called Silicon Harbour in Shanghai instead of Hong Kong, after failing to gain sufficient incentives from the SAR Government.

Apparently Shanghai is offering the group a five-year tax exemption and a 50 per cent tax waiver for the following five years, plus lots of cheap land - an offer Hong Kong was not willing to match.

Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! We are starting to get these things right. This brief item was actually much more significant to us than just another confirmation that tech stocks around the world are still over-priced.

Cast your mind back to how all this arose. About two years ago Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa decided for some reason to make Israel one of his first foreign visits in his new job and, while there, fell under the enchantment of information technology. He came back vowing to make Hong Kong an i-city too.

In short order we had Cyber-Port (have we got the spelling worked out yet?), a boost for Science Park, a big science and technology development fund and a council of advisers.

From this last one came the idea of Silicon Harbour. The Americans have a Silicon Valley. All we need to do is change the name a little and, hey presto, Intel's your uncle. We can make microchips too.